Fixing Furniture

Learn how to use milk paint to refinish furniture with this easy tutorial. This amazing before and after shows just how easy and beautiful milk paint turns out. 

This post is sponsored by The Real Milk Paint Company. All opinions are entirely my own. 

Ever since I painted an old nightstand with chalk paint, I was hooked on using alternatives to regular latex paint.

For me, chalk paint was one of the easiest ways to transform old furniture and the results were amazing.

Since I had such a great experience with chalk paint, I had been wanting to work with milk paint.

Yes, there is a difference between the two! Milk paint comes in powder form, so you mix it with water.

Milk paint is always non-toxic, which is a huge bonus.

We have been moving toward having a more organic and natural lifestyle, and with our love for DIY, milk paint seemed like a natural next step for us.

So, our first milk paint project was giving an old dresser a makeover. This dresser was given to us from my aunt and uncle and it easily dated back to the 1950s.

My goal was to bring some new life into this old piece by using milk paint.

The dresser was really tall, and I recently saw that you can run furniture through a tablesaw to shorten it! So, I gave my husband the challenge of shortening the dresser, thinking it would make for a less bulky piece.

Below is the old dresser, in its original form.

My husband accepted my challenge and transformed the tall dresser into a shorter one using a jigsaw (for those details check out how to shorten a tall dresser).

I was so thrilled with how the four drawer dresser looked and couldn’t wait to start refinishing it with milk paint.

For a sneak preview of how the dresser turned out, check out the picture below. The milk paint completely transformed this old piece, and now I’m hooked on milk paint!

If you have an old piece of furniture that you’d like to redo, milk paint can completely make it over. From choosing a paint to putting on new hardware, all the details are in this simple tutorial.

How to Choose Milk Paint

When researching milk paints to use on furniture, I came across the Real Milk Paint Company and loved how natural the paint was. Their paint is entirely environmentally-friendly.

There’s absolutely no VOCs in the Real Milk Paint, and it is completely non-toxic. It’s made from iron oxide pigment, milk casein, and lime. You can literally discard the paint in your garden.

Crazy, right?!

After reading all the benefits of the Real Milk Paint Company’s paint, I knew it was the perfect choice for my next DIY furniture transformation project.

How to Prepare Furniture for Painting

First, you want to clean your piece and remove any hardware. Sometimes your piece of furniture might be old, and the hardware might be difficult to remove.

Ours was like this too, and we have a great tip in the a below section (How to Put New Knobs on a Dresser).

Now with milk paint, you need to be able to get the milk paint to stick to the surface of the furniture. So, you have two choices:

1. You can either sand down your piece OR
2. You can use a bonding agent in your milk paint.

If you use a bonding agent in your milk paint, you eliminate the need to sand.

For this old dresser, we did a little bit of both to prepare the furniture for milk paint. We sanded down the top of the dresser to give it a fresh start, but we mixed the bonding agent in the paint for the rest of the dresser.

You only need to mix in the bonding agent with the first coat. So, if you make another batch of paint for subsequent milk paint coats, you don’t need a bonding agent.

The Real Milk Paint Company has a product called Ultra Bond, which is really simple to just add into your mixed paint. Then, you don’t have to sand your piece, which does save a lot of time.

Milk Paint Material List

The following list of materials is what we used to transform this old dresser. I highly recommend getting a new high-quality bristle brush when working with milk paint, but more on that later.

• French Gray milk paint
• Lakeview Blue milk paint
• Ultra Bond – This is the bonding agent which eliminates the need to sand your furniture.
• Finishing Cream
• Bristle paint brushes – This is a great brush set for milk painting.
• Measuring cup – I grabbed an old 1/4 cup from the kitchen.
• Cup for water – Plastic solo cups work well.
• Plastic spoons – These are helpful for dipping into the finishing cream and milk paint powder.
• New hardware – This is your preference but updating old hardware is such a great upgrade! And, I’m loving these half moon drawer pulls.

How to Mix Milk Paint

Milk paint comes in a powder form. Don’t let this scare you though because mixing the milk paint couldn’t be easier!

You definitely don’t need to be an artist or a even cook to be able to mix and measure your milk paint.

It’s a one-to-one ratio, so the measuring is simple.

And then you just shake, shake, shake.

So I was mixing the Real Milk Paint Company’s French Gray with just a little bit of their Lakeview Blue. However, I LOVED the French Gray so much that I added very little of the Lakeview Blue in.

To start, I grabbed a quarter cup from the kitchen and a few plastic spoons. I also filled a red solo cup with water.

Out in the garage, I scooped out a quarter cup of the French Gray and dumped it in the paint can.

Then I scooped one spoonful of Lakeview Blue and added it in.

Then, I filled the quarter cup again with water and dumped this into the can. I also added one spoonful of water (to balance out the blue) and added that to the mix too.

I closed the paint can and started shaking it up. You’ll hear the marble that comes with the can bouncing around.

This helps to mix the paint up.

After giving it a really good shake, let it sit for 20 minutes. After that, if any clumps come to the surface, simply shake it up again.

That’s it! Easy, right?!

Milk Paint Mixing Tip: If you are going to mix colors, make sure to write down exactly what you mixed so that you can create the same color again.

Testing Your Color

As tempted as you will be to start painting, it’s best to test your color first. You want to make sure the color dries the way you like it.

So, pick a small little area and give the color a little while to dry to make sure you like it.

The French Gray and Lakeview Blue mix that I conjured up was more powder blue than charcoal blue, so I decided that when I made another batch, that I would use a smaller amount of Lakeview Blue.

This was one of my favorite parts of painting with milk paint – you make your own color!

Of course, there are base colors to start with, and then you can add other colors in to achieve the look you want.

With regular latex paint, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve taken a can of paint back because it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.

With milk paint, you eliminate all that by making your own color.

How to Use Milk Paint on a Dresser

Okay, I simply cannot stress this enough, but you need to use a really, really good paintbrush with milk paint.

You might not want to go digging in your bucket of brushes and instead just buy a couple really nice ones.

You’ll thank yourself later when you love your refinished piece.

If you use a poor paintbrush, you’ll end up with lots of streaks and uneven surfaces. But a smooth bristle brush will give your surface a really nice look.

Where to Start with Milk Paint

So, back to painting. Now that your paint is mixed and you’re happy with the color, it’s time to get started.

I would choose a small area to start in, so that you get used to the milk paint on a smaller surface.

Rather than jumping right into the top of the dresser, I started on a drawer.

Starting on a drawer gave me a smaller area to work on so that I could perfect my milk painting technique.

As you’re painting, keep your water cup near your paint can, because depending on how thick your mix is or what coat of paint you are working on, you might need to add some water.

Tricks to Painting with Milk Paint

Milk paint has a different consistency than regular paint and a different consistency than chalk paint. It’s not as smooth as either of those. It can be watery, thick, or can even clump together.

Light Coats – The trick is you want to give your furniture light coats.

Don’t clump on thick layers of paint because milk paint doesn’t work this way. Paint will start to build up in places and start to crack. Light coats are key.

The milk paint might look streaky because you’ll see the wood coming through, but that’s okay. Another coat or two of milk paint will even it out.

Even Brushing – Another tip is that milk paint usually dries the way you are painting it on.

So, you want to make sure you are running your brush from one end of the piece to the other, so you don’t have brush strokes on your piece.

f you’re seeing brush strokes when you paint, you will see these when it dries.

Adding Water – If you’re painting and the milk paint seems too thick and it isn’t spreading well, then dip the very, very edges of your brush into your water cup.

A little water goes a long way. Then attempt to spread the paint.

You also might do this with a second or third coat to help the paint spread better.

Now, if your paint becomes bubbly, you have too much water. Keep going over the bubbles with the brush, until they are completely gone.

Getting into a Rhythm – I think the best tip I could give you is to just work with the paint, and the more you work with it, the more you’ll find a good consistency and technique for you.

As you start painting, you’ll start to get into a rhythm and notice what works well for you.

How to Use Milk Paint on Furniture Video

In the below video, I show you my process for painting with milk paint, using a drawer as a test piece. 🙂

My Milk Paint Process

Just to back track, after painting a test spot with milk paint, I went on to paint a drawer.

I was happy with that, so I continued onto painting the rest of the drawers. 

After the drawers, I was comfortable with my consistency and I moved onto painting the top of the dresser.

It took me a little while to paint the top of the dresser with milk paint. I started in small areas, like I mentioned above and continued to keep smoothing out the milk paint.

I didn’t do the rounded sides of top quite yet because the milk paint dried so fast – that I was spending all the time getting the top to look perfect.

After I was pleased with the top, I moved onto the front of the dresser and the rounded sides. For the rounded sides, I wanted to paint these with precision.

I needed to be careful not to get any paint on the dresser top – since I had already painted that and it had dried. For the rounded sides of the dresser top, I used a small brush from my craft room.

Pictured below is the whole dresser after one coat of milk paint.

It was a little more blue than I wanted, so the next coat I mixed up, I used just a half spoonful of Lakeview Blue.

And, the third coat of milk paint, I used all French Gray.

The picture below is after the first coat – so the dresser was looking quite blue.

I continued on to paint two really good coats of milk paint on the entire dresser, and then a third light topcoat.

Letting the Milk Paint Dry

Milk paint dries super fast, so you can knock out a milk painting project in a short amount of time.

Paint a coat, head inside for a snack, and by the time you’re done that snack, you can probably do another coat.

That’s why milk painting is a great naptime project for mommas!

How to Apply Finish to Milk Paint

Applying the finish to the milk paint dresser couldn’t have been easier. Once the milk paint furniture is dry, you can apply your finish.

We used the low sheen finishing cream from The Real Milk Paint Company. I simply scooped a dollop out with a spoon and then used an old sock to rub it all over the dresser.

You use enough of it to cover your area. It was super easy.

The finishing cream is non-toxic – and doesn’t have any kind of smell. Only one coat was necessary too!

Milk Paint Finishing Tip: Some of the milk paint pigment might rub off on your cloth. This is normal. If your piece of furniture is more than one color then you might want to use a separate cloth for each milk painted color you are applying the finish to.

How to Put New Knobs on the Dresser

Part of the upgrade that we were giving the dresser was new hardware. I loveee adding new hardware to old pieces because it is an instant upgrade.

Prior to painting, when I removed the original hardware, I had a little trouble removing a few of the old knobs. 

Some of the screw heads started to strip with my screwdriver because of the age, so I used my impact driver to easily remove them with no damage.

In putting the new knobs on the dresser, I decided to use round knobs on the top small drawers and half moon shell knobs on the rest of the drawers.

This made the two smaller drawers the easiest to upgrade as it was just a matter of swapping the old knobs with the new ones.

The larger drawers needed some additional holes drilled to accommodate the half moon shell drawer pulls. I used a ruler to line up the existing holes.

My husband helped me out with this since my kids’ naptimes had ended.

He drilled new holes parallel to the ruler, offset by 2.5″ from the old holes (the spacing required for the new handles).

Excited to see the refinished dresser with the new hardware, I laughed when I saw that my husband installed all the half moon drawer pulls upside down haha! (see below).

He thought the half moon shell pulls were like little bowls 🙂

After having a quick chuckle, I easily flipped the half moon drawer pulls. It was just a quick fix to flip them, and voila! The refinished dresser was done.

I finished the piece just as the sun was setting and was anxious to move it inside.

Once inside, I quickly adorned it with some of my favorite decor, including the below picture of my late grandmother.

So fitting too because she was a DIYer back before the term ever existed. A flea market fanatic decades before all of the network shows.

Boy, she would have loved to have known about milk paint.

Overall, I was so thrilled with how the refinished dresser looked in our home. It was truly quite a makeover.

If you are looking to transform an old piece of furniture or if you are just looking for a non-toxic, child-friendly, pet-friendly safe paint, definitely check out The Real Milk Paint Company.

They offer tons of colors (and you can mix even more yourself), the paint is easy to work with, your painting projects and possibilities are endless, and most importantly, the paint is safe.

My wife is always coming home with new furniture – chairs, dressers, nightstands, tables. She loves to redo them, and they always turn out really nice.

Recently Eileen’s aunt and uncle gave her an old dresser from when her uncle was quite little. The dresser needed a little TLC, and so we had a plan to make it over with milk paint. 

However, after watching a little too much HGTV, Eileen saw a couple of DIYers run a dresser through a tablesaw. So as Eileen was out in the driveway getting ready to paint the dresser, she got a vision of how nice the tall dresser would look if it were shorter.

Now, I’ve never had modify furniture in this manner before, so… challenge accepted.

How to Shorten a Tall Dresser

Here is the dresser in its original lanky self:

Eileen wanted the new height to be comparable to some existing dressers in our house, so I set my target height to around 34.”

There were a number of ways I thought to accomplish this. I settled on the simplest method of cutting a section off the bottom, and relocating some trim to conceal my work.

To make a quick prototype, I toppled the behemoth and lopped off its legs to get close to our target height:

Once we were satisfied with the feel of the new height of the shortened, it was time to dig into the details to restore the look.

At this point, it looked like a giant box with just the legs cut off:

To unbox the look, I marked out cutting lines with my golden trio – measuring tape, speed square and pencil:

My jigsaw made short work of cutting this dresser:

Here I extracted some trim for relocation:

Unfortunately, some of the trim had wood glued into some grooves that I needed exposed. So I clamped them down in my JawHorse and chiseled out the grooves:

In the process of shifting all the trim upwards, I exposed some more grooves in the new legs.  I didn’t want to leave the grooves there and risk pieces of the legs breaking off.

So I filled in those grooves with scrap cut-offs accompanied by a generous serving of wood glue:

Once the wood glue dried, I trimmed and sanded the cut-offs with my random orbital sander, resulting in some solid looking legs:

All the trim was now relocated and the dresser reconstruction was completed:

We were so pleased with how the tall dresser was now shortened and couldn’t wait for the next step of the project – making it over with milk paint.

Check back next week to see the complete dresser makeover!

Whether you are an amateur or experienced woodworker, Paul from Woodwork Boss is sharing 9 amazing reasons you should build your own furniture. There are lots of benefits to making your own furniture, and I’m sure you’ll be ready to build by the end of the article. 🙂

Woodworking certainly is a handy skill. From small trinkets to custom cabinets, the things you can create are truly endless.

But did you know that you can build your own furniture? Creating your own furniture, especially with little to no related experience, can seem like a large undertaking.

The truth is, while it can be difficult, depending on your skills and what it is you are building, making your own DIY furniture has many benefits over buying from the store.

1. Anyway You Like It

You’re sifting through catalogs of furniture, unable to find exactly what you want. If only you could combine this feature with that feature, you’d have your dream piece.

Rather than settle for something close to what you had in mind, build the furniture yourself. Nothing will ever match the exact look or functionality you were hoping for.

Not only that, but nobody has a better idea of what you need than you. The advantage of custom furniture is that you can make it look, work, and feel exactly how you need it to. Build your own furniture and enjoy your customized creation.

This shelf was made to perfectly fit four fabric storage bins

2. Hands-on Experience

Do you know how to use a saw? Are you handy with a can of paint primer? You’re going to be.

Part of making your own furniture is the learning experience and gaining practical skills. Even if you aren’t Bob Vila, you can build beautiful, sturdy furniture as well as anyone. You’ll be so impressed with the experience you’ll gain, and you’ll soon be a furniture-making pro.

If you ever run into a rough patch, you can look up tips and tricks online, just as easily as you’re reading this article. When you build your own furniture, you’ll get plenty of experience and the Internet is great at walking you through it.

3. Some Assembly Required

If you’ve ever bought pre-made furniture, then you likely know that it isn’t what you’d consider pre-made, most of the time.

Spending hours assembling a simple bookshelf, studying instructions that seem to be written in a different language, only to find the screws are too short or the holes don’t match up.

If you find yourself thinking, “I could’ve built this myself by now,” you’re probably right. Yet if you make your own DIY furniture, you can put that time and effort into creating something that you love, rather than following someone else’s “premade” instructions.

Below is picture of DIY drawers and drawer handles for a rolling workbench.

Building things yourself oftentimes leads to a lot less frustration assembling premade pieces

4. Long-Lasting

If you ever make a mistake, or your furniture gets old, damaged, or worn-out, the advantage of DIY furniture is that you know how to replace a part or which color to re-finish it, because you’re the one who did it the first time.

You won’t have to guess what part number from which company was used, or whether or not they finished the wood with lacquer number 59 or 67. When making your own furniture, you get to make these decisions when building, and then you can benefit from them later on.

Your homemade desk, chair, cabinet, or anything else, can be used and restored indefinitely. This is such an advantage when you build your own DIY furniture.

5. Durability

If you’ve ever been to discount furniture stores, you probably have felt that much of their furniture, especially in the “reasonably priced” section, feels like you could crack it by leaning on it.

Those vinyl covered hunks of particle board are designed to be mass-produced and appear nice, but not for very long. Soon, the glue starts peeling, the thin cardboard paneling loosens, and the screws start pulling out under the weight of the furniture.

When you build your own furniture, you decide what type of material to use.

In most cases of making your own furniture, real lumber is the way to go, which will certainly be much more durable than anything a retail store can provide you with.

Furniture made from real lumber is much more durable than “wood” from retail stores

6. Affordability

You did it – you finally found a perfect chair. It’s strong, sturdy, the perfect shade of walnut, and has smooth corners, exactly like you wanted.

But then you look at the price tag, and you remember why you considered building your own.

Depending on the type of piece you need, where it’s going to be placed, and what materials you prefer to use, building your own furniture could be free or expensive.

Yet with most furniture, you can buy the wood and materials you need in good condition for significantly less than you would if you bought a premade item. The additional costs would be the tools you need, assuming you don’t have them.

You can also upcycle materials and use scrap wood, which definitely creates savings when making your own furniture.

Additionally, discount tool stores often have great deals on saws, hammers, drills, and any other tools you may need. Not to mention, these are one-time expenses, since you can continue using them when you are making your own furniture in future projects.

7. Bragging Rights

Once you finally build your new chair, you can stick it right in the middle of your living room and show it off to friends and family. Let them know the work you put into it. Your friends will be oogling at your talent.

The bragging is even sweeter if it’s such a nice piece that they don’t believe you built it at first. When you start building your own furniture, you’ll not only impress yourself, but your friends too.

A blank wall turned into built-in bookcases with a window seat

8. Team-Building

You don’t have to undertake this project alone. If you have kids, this could be a great way to introduce them to learning about hard, careful work, as well as teaching safety.

Or, if you can get a friend who wants a fun weekend project, order some pizzas, play some good tunes, and spend a constructive day with your pals, instead of sitting in front of a TV all day. Making your own furniture is definitely good bonding time, and you get to share the experience with someone else when you build your own furniture.

9. Carry Over Skills

Aside from simply the experience of building your own furniture, a task like this allows you to retain knowledge that can be applied to over fields. You’ll have a better understanding of construction and building processes when making your own furniture.

If your wall gets scuffed, you already know the process of repainting. If your door frame gets chipped or cracked, you already have the knowledge of sanding, using wood putty, and re-finishing.

You friend’s car upholstery starts coming loose and you’re able to help, because you already did it once on your homemade chair. You’ll be handy with saws and power tools from making your own furniture – that’s another set of skills that will come handy in your life.

Learning to use more tools adds to your experience when you build your own furniture

These are skills that build upon each other, and you won’t gain them until you start building your own furniture.

From bragging rights to affordability to customized creations, there are definite perks of building your own furniture. Next time you’re stuck assembling something that doesn’t seem to go together or looking through catalogs for the perfect piece, definitely consider making your own furniture.

Paul is an avid woodworker and the editor-in-chief of the website Woodworkboss.com. Via his site, he hopes to inspire fellow woodworking enthusiasts while sharing tips and ideas for woodworkers who are starting their crafting journey.